New Motherboard!! Which should I get?

[Gladius]

I have 2 computers with Soyo Dragon+ mobos in then currently and have had quite a few problems with them. I am going to RMA them and get something different. Here are my main system specs... what motherboard would you recommend? I am a gamer and need the best performance and stability.

Athlon 1.4 GHz
Gainward Geforce3
768 MB PC2100 DDR RAM (3 sticks of 256)

So I need a good stable board that supports that hardware. The other machine is the same except for a Athlon XP 2000+ CPU.

Please give me your recommendations, I really need stablility fast! My main system gets all kinds of errors. Some games wont install, and I get I/O errors. And corrupted data errors. It was fine before I put the Dragon+ in it. Same with the other one only it just freezes constantly.

[BigBlue66]

For stability, you can't go wrong with MSI motherboards. Which would you be interested in, a KT266A chipset or a KT333 chipset? MSI has boards for each of those chipsets based on VIA of course. Don't know if you're a VIA fan or not. I have never had any problems with the VIA chipset, or the MSI motherboards.

[Gladius]

Well... Either would do. I don't know much about the KT333 chipset though. In fact this is the first I have heard of it. I used to have an MSI mobo and it was great, so yes.. I think I will consider MSI.

[belash]

I am struggling myself, trying to choose which KT333 motherboard to get. Right now, there are the following choices.

MSI KT3 Ultra
Gigabyte GA-7VRXP or GA-7VRX(no raid)
Asus A7V333
Epox 8K3A+

Each has their pro/cons. Right now, I simply want the most stable board, with extra features and overclocking secondary. The following site has reviewed all four boards.

http://www.tbreak.com/

[Un4given]

How quickly people have forgotten. The Soltek boards are both fast and stable, with good o/c features. Their pricing is also very reasonable.

If you want a good performing board, with super stability, but lesser o/c features, the Gigabyte is also a good choice.

Right now I would kinda stay away from the Epox. There are have already been at least 2 SF members that have gotten DOA 8K3A boards. I think they both ordered from the same place, so it could just be a bad batch, but if it isn't, this could be a sign of design problems with the Epox board, or possibly some severe QA problems.

[Gladius]

Between the Gigabyte and the MSI which would you recommend?

[Un4given]

With stability as the primary concern, I would take the Gigabyte.

[Gladius]

Well, not just stability. I want the best performance as well. From the reviews I've seen the MSI is super stable as well, yet out performs all the other KT333 boards. So I think I will go with the MSI KT3 Ultra board. Thanks for your help Where do you think I should get it?

[Un4given]

I can't honestly recommend the MSI board. To many of the SF members here have had way to many problems with them. Also, there is a current issue with the MSI boards in that there is a bug that won't allow the memory and FSB to run async for 133/166 support. It should be corrected by a BIOS update, but who knows when that will happen.

[Gladius]

Ok then. I will go with the Gigabyte. Not much less performance anyway. And it actually beat the MSI in some benchmarks. Where's a good place to buy? I need it on Firday. So a place that can probably ship it tomorrow next day air would be great.

[Vengance_01]

www.newegg.com Best and only place to order online. USA only tho

[Gladius]

Just placed the order! thanks a lot guys! I got the Gigabyte GA-7VRXP.

[muzikjunkie]

great, you chose a very good board, wanna get me one too?

[poohbear1971]

Originally posted by Un4given
How quickly people have forgotten. The Soltek boards are both fast and stable, with good o/c features. Their pricing is also very reasonable.

Hey I think I like this guy there is alot of all around boards and even the soltek if not overclocking seems to be faster then alot of other boards on the market if you dont want alot of the raid features ect and is very resonbale in price. just go to www.newegg.com And as well I can agree with the rest of his statements on here too. Preonaly I think Soltek cuz you can overclock the heck out of a cpu and its got a anit burn sheid that auto shuts down the computer if the temps get too high and it auto overclocks for you.